The two weeks of Christmas holiday came and passed, and in early January 2020 things went back to business as usual.
Well, almost.
Those two weeks of distance left me with a lot of time to get real with reality.
I knew I was obsessed. I’d consciously known that since August 2018. The fantasising and longing for some nonexistent dreamworld drove me into a dark hole to the point of not speaking for days. Most of the time, I played Mahjong on my phone.
I wondered how he was spending his Christmas. Did they travel to his wife’s parents again, like he’d told me they often did?
Had he forgotten about me now that he was with his family again—like he was supposed to as a good husband and father?
Did he ever have prophetic dreams about me in all these months like I had about him?
I asked the universe, “Am I going insane? There’s some kind of bond here and we both know it. All these coincidences of meeting him at just the right places and times, the dreams, my physical symptoms, our similarities and differences. What am I supposed to learn!? How to cry my eyes out!? I already know that, dammit!!”
He and I were even astrologically bound. He’d told me enough birth details to check his natal chart. For example, whereas I have 55% “Fire” and 0% “Water”, he has 55% “Water” and 0% “Fire”.
The evidence of 9 months just didn’t lie.
I knew I had more to learn from this connection.
I just didn’t know what yet.
But I knew we’d crossed the peak of our connection this time. I felt it in my bones. There would be no more interaction for a long time, if ever again. I knew he would put a stop to engaging with me after these two weeks of being with his family, remembering his responsibilities and the life he’d built.
He wouldn’t throw it all away for me. And my deepest parts honestly didn’t want him to.
This connection wasn’t supposed to destroy.
It was supposed to get our lives back into alignment—at least, that’s what I knew to be true for mine.
It was supposed to make me grow.
And it already had!
Last year, I’d been convinced I was asexual, unlovable, unlikeable, all men were either scary or mean, I was a coward, and love and attraction weren’t meant for me in this lifetime.
Now, I had to let go of all those beliefs.
My ego didn’t like that.
Who would I be if I wasn’t completely unwanted in the world?
I would just be. . . normal.
Average.
I couldn’t be the victim anymore.
And accepting that was fucking terrible! It was the start of a years long ego-death.
But in January 2020, my assessment about the situation was proven to be correct. There was no more eye-contact or flirting or conversations. He’d gotten back to his senses, as predicted.
On one hand, this was a relief. I wasn’t a home-wrecker after all, and despite his faults, he wouldn’t cheat on his wife. He’d put a stop to his inappropriate behaviour and I respected this by keeping my distance from him. It was over.
On the other hand, my ego used this as a chainsaw on my broken heart—because of course a part of me was grieving the loss. I was happy he’d chosen his family, but I was also in anguish over it. My inner punisher loved this.‘See? You should’ve kept your distance from the start. Never made eye-contact, never given any indication of interest. Now you know with certainty that men just don’t choose you. You’re not good enough. You’re fun for a while, but ultimately not worth risking anything for.’
My ego made a victim of me when the actual victims were His wife and kids. How the hell would they feel if they knew? I’d seen his wife and son in person! How vile is that? Imagine hosting a guest in your house who later turns out to have been having an affair with your husband/father.
The thought made me sick.
I was disgusted with myself.
I was also terrified of the ensuing karma. Sure, I never would’ve slept with him, but I’d flirted. I’d responded with “Yes” to his escalations. I’d actively participated in an emotional/mental affair.
And I knew I wouldn’t change what I did even if I could. Because I’d learnt too much about myself, my trauma, my patterns, and male-female dynamics in these 9 months.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I meant it. I’m sorry I wouldn’t change a thing.”
If I had to pay off an energetic debt for all these invaluable experiences, so be it.
February came and went.
Then the global mass psychosis happened.
Honestly, I was relieved I wouldn’t have to go to uni for a while. I wouldn’t see him and I didn’t want to see him in person anymore. It just hurt. Like picking on a scab that wants to be left alone.
It didn’t help that I lived close enough to his office building to clearly see him in his office when he had his lights on (as was customary during winter). With the right timing, I’d even see him enter and leave the building.
The fact that he was so close yet unreachable forced me to face my obsession and limerence.
Every day, I negotiated with the temptation to stare out the window for hours.
Every day, I had the choice between spiralling into longing and despair, or using my time for something creative, useful, enlivening.
There was no escape from my choices, nowhere to hide.
It was fucking brutal.
Because of course I spent hours in front of the window. My body would flood with dopamine when I happened to see him and fall into disappointment when I wouldn’t. It was like gambling. A fucking addiction. ‘Will I see him today or not? Better not miss a minute!’
And while staring out the window, I’d feel disgusted with myself for being so pathetic. Why did I need this? What was wrong with me? I wasn’t clingy. I didn’t want to be a woman who pined and despaired for any man. He’d rejected me. It was over.
Well. . . He hadn’t verbally rejected me.
From his perspective, there was nothing to reject.
I’d never told him I liked him. I’d only initiated a conversation once, that time at the club. From his POV, I’d responded to his approaches, but neither confirmed nor denied nor offered any real evidence of, “I like you!”
He wasn’t a mind reader. He had no idea I’d been obsessed with him for over a year by this point.
I relived those 9 months from his perspective. I saw a woman who was pleasant and friendly in some instances while being cold and uninterested in others. One week she’d flirt and the next she refused to look up from her laptop—or was completely absent. Weeks could go by without seeing a trace of her, and suddenly she’d be back like nothing had happened. She never said ‘Hello’ first, only smiling and responding if he initiated a conversation. She also flirted with and hugged other men, so maybe being flirty was her personality?
In my efforts to hide my feelings, I’d actually denied myself the opportunity to be seen for once in my life.
Sure, his marriage status was the best reason to hide my attraction from him. But it wasn’t the real reason—which was my love avoidance and terror at feeling vulnerable, weak and rejected.
My obsession had remained strong because this avoidance of being fully seen was fuelling the obsession.
You can’t be rejected when the other person has no idea you even liked them in the first place. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Assumptions. Uncertainty.
I needed to confess.
‘Fuck no. Hell fucking no. I’m not doing that. Don’t make me do this. I’m begging you, don’t make me tell him. I hate this. I hate all of this crap!’
I hated all of that crap so much I refused to entertain the idea most of 2020. Instead, I satiated the hole inside my soul by watching those “Is he thinking about you?” Tarot videos and collapsing more and more every day.
Then I felt something I hadn’t felt since my last panic attack in 2016: the desire for death. For everything to just stop, forever, and free me from this misery I called life.
That was the final straw.
That’s when I made the decision to find help.
One evening in late September 2020, I googled "How to process emotions?”
The site that came up would change the course of my life forever.
The woman who hosted it has since deleted her online presence, but back then she had written a guide on how to process emotions somatically, not unlike my own.
She talked about trauma and how wild animals shake to release stress in the body while human children are conditioned to control themselves, not make a scene, and be good.
She talked about the inverted way society relates to emotions, how we label some as ‘good’ and others as ‘bad’.
What she said made total sense.
Yes, I couldn’t scream or show my anger, so I had trouble setting boundaries with people.
Yes, I thought my tears were a sign of weakness.
Yes, I had deficient abilities to connect with people and I was chronically single after severe bullying and growing up where my child self’s needs weren’t seen.
Of course I was fucked up.
I couldn’t not be fucked up.
And according to this woman, I wasn’t a lost cause. She’d experienced trauma herself and found a way to integrate it.
I’d found the answer to my calls.
I was ready.
Spirituality and energy work had been in my periphery for a while. I’d learned about manifestation, kundalini yoga, singing bowls, and chakras some time ago and had always been called to these practices.
But now, they were like puzzle pieces fitting into this larger body of work. Somatic therapy. Body-based healing. I’d always been living from my mind, so I had no idea there was another possibility.
Soon after, I made the connection between the loss of my twin—an event I rarely talked about, but was aware of—and my trauma responses. So much grief and tears emerged. I cried and cried and cried—from my body, not my mind.
I was opening. Slowly, with so much patience for my blockages, I deconditioned my old beliefs.
In December 2020, the inconvenient truth dropped. I had to contact Him. Not to make something happen with him. But to face my own fears of abandonment. To have the experience of telling a man I liked him and stand in the full vulnerability of my feelings laid bare. And, because the ego is ever present, it received masochistic pleasure being rejected for real this time.
Because my avoidance pattern’s conclusion lies in being abandoned. Just like my twin had suddenly vanished from the womb and left me alone. I’d recycled that pattern over and over, subconsciously. My relationships with people always started out as fun and easy, there’d be a connection, and then they’d betray me, abandon me, bully me, and break off all contact.
My subconscious kept this pattern alive.
It was time to face it head-on.
First, I chose the indirect route by sending him an email wishing him a merry Christmas and happy New Year’s Eve.
No response.
Not surprising. This made me feel more secure in that he really would reject me and I could process this pattern.
One fateful evening, around 7pm, I got my chance to speak to him. It was dark out and his office lights were still on. The time was now.
And my body did not want me to do it. I started shaking, vomiting, shitting my guts out. I was ice cold and used the hairdryer to warm me up. Would I even manage to walk the couple meters to his bike? I couldn’t trust my legs to carry me, but I had to risk it.
My body was experiencing an intense, involuntary trauma response. And I held myself as much as I could. By now, I’d learned about anchors and did my best to focus on what felt safe in my body.
In the end though, I knew I needed to do this, no matter what.
So I walked to the bike parking lot and waited.
Soon, he came out of the building. I wasn’t looking at him, pretending to be minding my own business. As soon as he saw me, he did a double take and said, “Oh!”
I turned towards him and echoed the sentiment, approaching him. I hadn’t seen him up close in a year, and I had no filter when I said, “Oh hi! You’ve lost weight!”
He’d made a few comments about needing to lose weight, and he had. He tried to deny it with a smile, but it was obvious.
He said, “I haven’t seen you in a long time.” And my heart soared at the fact that he’d at least noticed my absence.
We caught up with each other, but I felt something was off. I didn’t feel the gravitational pull anymore. He felt muted. Deadened. Superficially polite, but actually not wanting to speak with me at all. He fumbled with his bike’s padlock. It refused to open and he murmured, “Shit,” under his breath.
I asked if he’d gotten my email.
He was surprised it was me who’d sent it. Apparently, he’d seen the mail, but couldn’t place the name, so he hadn’t know what to do with it.
Ouch. He didn’t even remember my name anymore.
By this point, I knew I had nothing to lose. Whatever spark we used to have had fizzled. He wanted to leave, I could see it, so I just put myself out there.
I said something like, “Maybe it didn’t seem like it at the time, but you’ve always been really nice and—“
He smiled and shrugged, “I like to think I’m generally nice.”
I continued, “Well, I really like you, so if you ever want to meet up somewhere to chat, I’m open to it.”
He said nothing as he moved his unlocked bike into position. He just beamed at the ground with a wide grin—like he often used to do around me last year.
His silence was the rejection my abandonment wound had been waiting for.
He was getting onto his bike and I wondered if he’d just leave without any further comment.
He didn’t. We wished each other a good night and parted, never to meet again.
I stayed there for another minute. I’d done what I’d set out to do. I’d received my rejection.
My body pulsed in the pain of an old wound slashed back into bleeding.
As I felt the throbbing ache in my nerves, I realised I also felt pleasure.
A part of me fucking loved this pain. It was satisfying. My heart was broken open and oozing dark sludge of rot, but here I was, relishing the hurt.
‘I’m so fucked up. Who the hell likes being rejected!?’
This pattern needed rewiring. If I enjoyed being abandoned by the people I liked, then I’d attract the same thing into my life, over and over.
This went beyond self-sabotage. This was a clear corruption of what human connection is supposed to be about, which is mutual trust, interest and affection—whether platonic or romantic.
But I was getting off on the opposite. Uncertainty, indifference and avoidance.
With this subconscious pattern ruling my body, I’d never have a relationship. I’d never be married. I’d never have children. I’d never build a friendship. I’d never receive support and love from other people. I knew that now. I could feel it clearly in my tissue, glowing with self-harming satisfaction as I walked home.
I felt a, ’The surgery was a great success! The patient is dead!’ kind of self-hatred in my body.
This wasn’t me. This wasn’t my soul. Long ago, something that was Not Love had wormed its way into the space where my bones and fascia connected, and squirmed contentedly in the home it’s carved there.
Now, six years later, I’ve expelled so much of it. I still feel remnants of it as I’m writing this out, a ghost memory of the sensation. But it’s clearly visible. Out in the open. It can’t hide behind my ego anymore.
I've gleaned an invaluable service from every single event here.
Because I chose to.
I could've made a victim of myself. "Life is so unfair. He's such a narcissist and I fell for it. All men are evil! I'll never find love or happiness. Why did this happen to me!?"
But I didn't.
I wanted to learn. I wanted to understand myself, my wounding, my energy, my patterns and conditioning.
I took responsibility for my part in this story.
And guess what, I actually learned from it.
I don't fall into obsession with married men anymore. Life has provided me ample opportunity to, but I said, "No. I'm not choosing this anymore. I know what you're doing, universe." I closed that door. Done with it.
Yes, it can really be that simple.
"Get in, take the medicine, get out." - Perri Chase.
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